Fox TV wants millions from Simpsons linker

AMERICAN BROADCASTER Fox TV is chasing $10.5m in damages from a chap that ran two linking websites.

The websites in question are the now closed Watch The Simpsons Online (WTOS) and Watch Family Guy Online, neither of which hosted any material directly.

According to Torrentfreak, Fox is nipping at the heels of its target after having been awarded a damages judgment in Federal Court in Toronto, Canada. The unnamed target told Torrentfreak that the pressure is on, and that the Fox legal team is pursuing its monies "as hard as they possibly can".

"Fox are pursuing for the money and they are doing so as hard as they possibly can. They've ruined my life and continue to do so as long as they don't leave me and my family alone. As it's been referenced by a lawyer: 'they are killing a fly with a nuke'," he told the website.

"This experience was the worst thing I could possibly imagine, Fox takes no mercy when destroying your life as you once knew it and then begins to drag your new life down as much as possible as well. I don't wish this upon anyone and simply wish the dinosaurs would just give their consumers what they want - which is to be able to stream their videos online easy, fast, worldwide."

The website admin did not have the funds to fight his corner and he let the case roll over him. Torrentfreak said that the bad news hit just before Christmas.

The websites gained attention from Fox after they began pulling in large numbers of users, as many as 87 million visitors during their stay on the internet.

Costs, said Timothy Lowman, a lawyer at the Sim & McBurney lawfirm who worked for Fox, all add up.

"The Judgment awards $10 million [CAD] for statutory damages, $500,000 for punitive damages and fixed/assessed solicitor client costs of $78.573.25 (in addition to an earlier cost award of $107,665.55)," he told Torrentfreak.

"The significant judgment in this case points up the risk courted by those who engage in internet piracy, in particular for commercial purposes. The Federal Court considers that such activities warrant significant assessments of statutory damages, in this case $13,888.88 per work infringed, and that such misconduct is also deserving of substantial awards of punitive damages to achieve the goal of punishment and deterrence of the offense of copyright infringement." µ